


a way home

by taylortot



Series: the way i love you [9]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Date Night, Established Relationship, Kissing, M/M, Soft Keith (Voltron), lance is too cute for my poor heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 03:28:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19191016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylortot/pseuds/taylortot
Summary: in which lance takes keith out on a date, of sorts





	a way home

“What’s up, buttercup?”

Keith glances up from the report he’s been absorbed in, blinking in surprise at Lance’s sudden appearance, blinking again when Lance plops down on his lap like he owns it and snatches the tablet out of Keith’s hands.

“Hey, I was—“

Lance powers it off with one swipe of his finger and places it out of reach. “Nope, nope, nope, I don’t want to hear it! It’s 2100 hours on one Earthen Saturday night and I wanna take you out.” He loops an arm around Keith’s neck and makes himself comfortable. “You’ve been looking at those dumb reports all day. It’s time for you to look at  _ me _ .”

Keith sighs but curls his arm around Lance’s waist and holds him close. He’d forgotten that tonight is date night. Even with the threat of Haggar hanging over them, Lance still insists that they carve out time for themselves when they can. There aren’t many places to be on a warship deep in space, but Lance somehow manages to make all of the similar, sharp-edged rooms into something private and perfect and new every time.

Truthfully, he’s glad for the distraction. He’s been running around in his own head for hours now, worrying about what tomorrow will bring, and nothing makes him feel better like Lance does. Especially when he smells this good.

He notices, at last, that Lance is wearing a dark shirt that fits him attractively, his purposefully tousled hair smelling strongly like the sweet shampoo Keith knows is in his shower caddy. His face is all dewy and clean, freshly tended to, blue eyes bright as twin stars. He’d gone out of his way to make himself look good for whatever he has planned, had probably waited for Keith a while before intervening and drawing his attention from the tablet to himself.

“You’re so demanding,” Keith says, dragging his gaze over Lance once more.

Lance smirks because Keith isn’t subtle. “Yeah, well, you’re the sucker who gives me whatever I want so—“

Keith cups his hand around the back of Lance’s neck and pulls him in gently for a kiss. He means for it to be short, chaste, enough to satisfy the boy in his lap, but Lance tightens the arm he’s got slung around Keith. He shifts so that even more of his weight drapes itself over Keith’s chest, pressing him back into the cushions of the couch and sighs into Keith’s mouth, parting his lips and dragging his teeth across Keith’s bottom lip slow and mild and insistent. 

It’s hotter than Keith expected, and it goes on forever, like Lance is happy to sit right here in one of the common rooms for the rest of his life with his tongue down Keith’s throat. It’s exactly the kind of kiss Keith earns late at night when they’re slick with ardor, sated desire thick and humid between them. He groans at Lance’s measured eagerness and the hand that smooths over his chest in promising little circles, breathing him in and growing hungrier for it. 

It makes him tilt further into the kiss but that’s when Lance breaks away, firmly pushing against Keith’s sturdy shoulder, eyes closed for a long moment before he slowly open them, gaze hazy and muddled. He looks at Keith through those half-lidded eyes, dark and blue and close, and licks his lips.

“I know you’re stressing out about tomorrow,” he whispers, catching his breath. “If you’d rather skip out and do some work, I’ll help. I just thought—“

Keith tightens his arm around Lance’s waist and runs his other hand along his thigh and hip in long, soothing strokes. “You look so good, Lance.” His voice is low, a rumble in his chest, and he watches with deep, bottomless satisfaction as Lance’s cheeks bloom with color. “So good.”

Lance smiles sweetly, pleased. “Yeah?”

Keith squeezes his hip and hums in affirmation, admiring the sprinkle of freckles on the crests of his pink cheeks. “Should I change?” Keith asks him.

Lance inspects him in his uniform. He pulls away slightly to begin undoing the buttons down the front to expose the black shirt underneath—Keith thinks he might be enjoying it because he takes his time. When he’s done with the buttons he works on rolling up the sleeves just enough to show off Keith’s forearms and then runs his fingers through Keith’s hair a few times for good measure. “No,” Lance finally says. “You suck for looking extremely sexy without trying, by the way.”

“I think you’re biased.” Keith grins and presses a quick kiss to the line of Lance’s jaw. “Where are we going tonight?” Two weeks ago, when they had down time, Lance had taken him to the garden on board and they’d had a picnic. The week before that, they’d sat in the red lion and shifted through grainy photos of Altean museum displays and artwork on Lance’s tablet. And before that, they’d taken Kosmo to the rec room and played a little one-on-one on the soccer field. 

Lance flashes him a thousand-watt smile and slides off his lap. “Camping.”

Keith’s heart skips a beat and he’s not entirely sure how Lance pulled that one off, but he’s eager to see. He follows Lance from the room, keeping close by his side as they walk through the busy main hallway to the less popular elevators. Keith slips his hand into Lance’s about halfway there.

The elevators take them up and up and up, all the way to the top floor. Lance stands close to him, their shoulders brushing, and when Keith turns to look at him, Lance is already there, pressing in close to give him a kiss, lingering and lingering, even when the doors open.

Keith pulls back marginally and grins, the space between them practically nonexistent. “What was that for?”

“Just felt like it,” Lance tells him softly, looking up at him with his big, blue eyes, sincere in a way that Keith isn’t prepared for. “C’mon.” Lance tugs his hand as he steps off the elevator, oblivious to the way he’s left Keith standing there, aching after the rare glimpse of  _ Lance _ , at the center of everything. Aching, because that look alone had been full of such affection that Keith feels it still, moments later as they approach one of the observation decks. Aching, because there’d been a stillness there, calm and quiet like a hiding place. Lonely like a hiding place. 

There’s no one else on the deck when they enter the room, but there is a makeshift fort of sorts, with heaps of spare blankets and pillows from the laundry room, tented like a—well, like a tent. Beside the fort, there is a candle, unlit, two thermoses, and a bag probably full of whatever food Lance thought would be appropriate. There’s a faint scent of pine needles hanging in the air, courtesy of a cheap car air freshener shaped like an evergreen and the smell of it hits him like a thousand distant memories all at once. The ceiling above them is nothing but a wide, wide window, and the stars are just about the only source of light aside from the electric lantern sitting on the floor by a stray pillow.

“Camping,” Keith says slowly, taking it all in. He can feel Lance watching him, but he’s still trying to recover from that look and from all the apparent effort Lance made to take Keith on a date, even in the middle of nowhere on a spaceship not built for privacy. His heart hurts. Sometimes, he spends so much time caught up in how much he loves Lance because that’s—for years before they were a  _ them _ , that’s all he had. That’s all he knew. 

He forgets that Lance loves him fiercely, just like this. It’s big and deep and  _ too much _ and it’s everything. It’s everything.

“Do you like it?” Lance asks him, tugging on his hand like a little kid to get his attention. “I know—well, you talked about how you used to go camping all the time with your dad and this isn’t the same thing but it’s the closest I could get to it. All this black paladin stuff hasn’t been easy on you and you’ve been...a little distant with the war. I get it! Me too, but just—I wanted to bring you home, at least for a little while.”

Keith just looks at him in the shadows; Lance’s eyes are bluer and brighter than a Texan sky as he waits for Keith’s reaction. The scale of what Lance wanted to do for him sinks in slow, and then quick, like a well-timed dance step and then he’s simply stunned that Lance remembered something they briefly spoke about months ago so well. And he forgets—he  _ forgets _ —but how— _ how _ —does that happen when Lance is so selfless and vulnerable and  _ his _ ?

“Lance.” Keith’s voice burns against the dark like an oil lamp.

Lance stands there, frozen from the intensity for a moment, before his hand tightens around Keith’s and he drops his gaze. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m awesome and all that,” he says softly. “C’mon. Let’s sit down. I, uh, brought my noise maker too. There’s a night time one that sounds like crickets and stuff? I’ve never been camping in the woods or anything; my family preferred the beach over practically anything and no one I know  _ actually _ likes sleeping in a tent on the ground but—“

Keith steps towards the slapstick tent and lowers himself down onto the pile of pillows, pulling Lance after him. “Why are you so nervous?” he asks Lance, quietly amused.

“You’re an intense guy,” Lance babbles on, filterless, as he settles next to Keith and picks up the lighter to light the candle. A pretend campfire. He still avoids looking at Keith, but their fingers are laced together on Keith’s lap. “The way you look at me, I-I—It’s a lot sometimes, okay? But like, in a really, really,  _ really _ good way, you know?”

“You told me to look at you.”

“Yeah. And don’t ever stop.”

Lance looks up at him from under his eyelashes and a tiny, crooked smile quirks at his lips despite his nerves, the light from the candle flickering across his face. Keith has to kiss him, now, before the fullness in his heart spills over and kills him, so he does. He doesn’t let himself get carried away, doesn’t let that hunger inside him yawn and consume; not yet, not until Lance is the one crawling into his lap and pushing him back into the pillows.

After a moment, Lance pulls away reluctantly and Keith stays close as his eyes flutter open slowly, so tender and so blue. 

“You’re all I see, Lance,” Keith tells him.

Lance sighs—it shivers out of him in a tiny, uneven little whoosh and he offers up the loveliest smile, his eyes bright moons, rosy-cheeked and beautiful. Keith is more in love with him now than he was five seconds ago. Seeing Lance pleased by Keith’s affection is a heady sort of rush that only inspires  _ more _ affection in him. His whole heart already rests with Lance, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to give and give and give and give.

Keith tilts his chin to press a delicate kiss to Lance’s forehead and then draws away, still holding his hand hostage.

“You have such a soft and squishy marshmallow heart, Keith,” Lance says, sounding both amused and enamored, humming happily as he nudges Keith’s thighs apart and settles between them with his back to Keith’s chest. “It’s a shame no one believes me when I tell people how sweet you are.” 

Keith releases his hand and wraps his arms securely around his waist, leaning forward to drape some of his weight against Lance and noses at the nape of his neck. He smells good here—there’s a hint of his body lotion, warm and intoxicating and sweet. So, so sweet. It brings Keith’s hunger back to the forefront of his mind. “No one else should see me this way,” he murmurs.

“Uh—no. This Keith is my Keith,” Lance agrees immediately, and those words provoke something incredibly basic and carnal inside of him. Lance seems oblivious to it, to the way Keith sighs out and presses his forehead to the back of his neck and tightens his arms around him. Instead, Lance drags the discarded bag closer and opens the flap to reveal thin biscuits, a container with chocolate chips and a few other snacks. “There’s hot chocolate in the thermoses and I got this stuff to like, pretend we’re at least eating s’mores? But I don’t have any marshmallows.” He pats Keith’s arm. “Guess that’s where you come in.”

Keith doesn’t move, but he grins wickedly against the top of Lance’s spine, right where skin meets the hem of his shirt. “You gonna eat me, Lance?”

Lance flings a hand back to hit him in the shoulder. “Shut up!” he cries. “That’s not what I meant and you know it!”

It makes Keith laugh, right into the back of Lance’s neck, and when he’s done, the silence between them stretches unusually long. That’s when there’s a sigh and then Lance is pushing away the bag and leaning back against Keith, head propped up on his shoulder, arms holding Keith’s snugly to his waist. Between the lantern light and the candle, the space around them is golden and flickering, the stars overhead searing through the black of space and down upon them with sharp focus.

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you laugh in weeks,” Lance says quietly, and there’s that loneliness again. Keith buries his face against the side of Lance’s neck, his heartstrings effectively tugged on, almost painfully. A part of him feels like crying. “I’ve missed you, Keith.”

Keith sighs and noses at a freckle at the crook of Lance’s shoulder. “Me too. Thank you for doing all this. How long did it take you?”

Lance tilts his head to the side, as if to offer up more of his skin. “A couple days to get everything together but I was showered and all set up here in like an hour. I liked it. Doing something for you, I mean.” He rubs his hands up and down the tops of Keith’s thighs slowly, to the knee and back, like he wants to indulge in the closeness they have right now just as much as Keith does. “I can’t wait to go home and date you like a normal guy. No weird sentient robot war machines or evil space witches. We could go camping for real or something.”

Keith begins to press kisses against Lance’s skin, all the way up to the shell of his ear and back down, growing a little more languid, a little more open, with each one he drops. “I’m gonna do more than date you, Lance,” Keith says between each one, his voice steady despite the snarl of desire caught in his throat like a fishhook.

Lance lets out a breathless laugh and sags further against Keith’s chest. “Ha, I knew it.” He groans suddenly when Keith presses his tongue and then his teeth, gently, into his pulse, and lingers. “Keith.”

Keith only hums—backs off a little bit, shuffling his nose through the tiny hairs at the edge of Lance’s hairline, his lips soft and undemanding as he runs them across honey-brown skin and bronzed freckles. He’s content here; enjoys the way that Lance relaxes into him, revels in the feeling that it’s just the two of them out here in space, untouchable by anything and everything else. 

“Did you have anything else planned?” Keith asks him, voice muffled against Lance’s shoulder. He brings one hand up and tugs lightly at the collar of the shirt while his other slips beneath the hem at Lance’s belly, pressing firmly against the hot, lean stretch of skin and muscle there.

“Stargazing,” Lance mumbles, sounding drunk despite the fact all Keith’s really done is kiss his neck. It makes Keith thrill—sets a fire up under his skin like sparklers on New Years. It makes him want more. His selfless nature with Lance is double-edged that way. The more he gives, the more he also wants to take. “But...b-but this is nice, too.”

“Okay.” Keith nuzzles against his pulse again, inclined to agree, fully appreciating the lap full of melted boy he’s got all gathered up against his chest. “Look at me so I can kiss you, sweetheart.”

Lance sighs and immediately turns his head, back still pressed to Keith’s chest as he reclines on Keith’s shoulder. His mouth splits with a dopey smile, eyes half-lidded, humming with glee when Keith’s hand smooths a warm, steady path up to his sternum and back down. “Don’t keep me waiting.”

Keith doesn’t. He angles his head and leans in to cover Lance’s lips with his, slight and gentle before giving way to something a little more measured, with a little more pressure. Lance begins to touch his thighs again, roaming up and down the tight fabric of Keith’s uniform pants slowly and the light touch makes him feel warmer than he ought to. With the hand not currently gripping Lance beneath his shirt, Keith grabs Lance’s chin and tilts him into the kiss, deepening the connection with a swipe of his tongue.

Lance opens easily for him, as he always does, eager to please, eager to be pleased, unafraid of holding anything back. Keith cradles him close, entirely at Lance’s mercy. He trembles despite leading the kiss, tasting Lance’s satisfaction like sugar on his tongue. A harsh sound is torn from the base of his throat when Lance reaches up and slides his fingers into his hair, gripping to keep him exactly where he wants him. It stays slow, but the kiss turns hot and wet, and eventually, Lance is twisting around in Keith’s arms, pulling Keith’s jacket off and pushing him back into the pillows.

Keith sighs beneath him, delighting in the slow slide of Lance’s greedy hands over his arms and chest. He clamps his own hand down on the small of Lance’s back, keeping them pressed together tightly, unwilling to allow any more space between them. 

After that, he loses himself, for a while. Lance takes his time, teasing sounds out of Keith like it’s his job, eventually rolling them over so that Keith’s weight smothers him against the bed of pillows. He seems to revel in the heat, in the security, kissing Keith slow and forever pulling him in closer with hands that are just shy of desperate. They run across his back and waist firmly; they slide through his long hair and tangle there like that’s where they’re meant to be.

Keith settles happily, drunkenly, against Lance’s hips, bracketed by the thick of his thighs, one of his hands pushing up Lance’s shirt like he’s got all the time in the world to take it off. He hums when Lance pants against his lips, palming at his chest under his shirt, too.

“Could do this forever with you,” Lance whispers out breathlessly, lost somewhere between Keith’s mouth and Keith’s hand.

Keith almost has to laugh deliriously against the pillow of Lance’s slick mouth and Lance groans when Keith curls his hand into a firm grip, low on his hip. He smirks down at him in the warm, half-lit shadows. “Promise?”

“Yeah,” Lance sighs, blinking at him slow and lazy like a self-satisfied cat. That wide smile of his comes back as they catch their breath and the blue of his eyes burns right into Keith like a sunset. He reaches up to gently brush some of Keith’s hair back from his face, resting his palm at the cut of his jaw. “Baby. Wanna be with you. You’re the only thing I’ve ever been so sure of.”

The sweet sincerity of Lance’s words have Keith taking a mental step back, his heart flipping in his chest. The edge of his smile turns softer, the lust that smolders low in his belly giving way to a warmth that glows through him like a sun. He runs a thumb along the crest of Lance’s cheek, that little collection of freckles, and commits it to memory, suddenly so full, he doesn’t know how to do anything else.

“Just so you know, this usually isn’t what camping is like,” Keith teases softly, making Lance laugh.

“What, you mean tents aren’t for getting handsy and confessing your undying love?” Lance grins and wraps his arms around Keith’s waist. “Whatever, who cares; you love it. You love  _ me _ .” His eyes twinkle a bit like stars when he says that last line, and the self-assured way he insists on it really does something lovely to Keith’s heart.

“It’s not like you’ve left me any other choice,” Keith says.

“All apart of my evil plan, of course.”

“Of course.”

Lance’s grin softens and he leans into Keith’s touch when he strokes his hand against his face. “Love you, Keith.”

Keith smiles and closes the distance between them once more.

**Author's Note:**

> This almost turned into the proposal—almost went with Keith’s impulsive nature BUT HE HAS PLANS DAMN IT HE’S GONNA STICK TO HIS GUNS THIS TIME OK.
> 
> Anyways, I’m dead. All of these kiss fics are so disgustingly self-indulgent please forgive me.


End file.
